nd as far as running the cat5 parallel to the phone, if your building the house why not set your cables into conduits, that way you can upgrade to whatever cabling you need in ten years.
Leaving a fairly easy upgrade path is almost always good advice.
Plus, hopefully in a few years everything will be wireless, and the cabling will be superfluous.
This is a step away from the "unix-way" with small exchangeable intercooperable aplications
Unfortunately, it seems to me that while this is the case with command line utilities, devolopers completely forgot this with gui software under X.
Now,I'm honestly not a huge fan of gnome [some of the software involved is cool]. But none of what I have tried seems to be able to simply drag and drop.
I want to be able to drag files from Nautilus into XMMS play lists. And drag and drop an executible into the menu to make a link, etc.
Until that happens, and until software is as easy as inserting a cd, Linux won't come close to Windows, either in a corporate environment or at home.
With that said however, I will admit that many pieces of software are getting much more mature and stable. All we need now are easier installation and better interoperability.
No tech support job I've ever had exceeded $9/hr, period.
It's not that uncommon. My first, starting tech support job, about 6 years ago, started at $12/hr.Within 2 years I was making $19/hr [$38k/yr] [still just doing mainly support]
Of course I've come a long way since then as a Unix SysAdmin...
One must also consider that in Silicon Valley, that $19/hr wasn't enough to really live on. At least not for a geek that wanted TOYS:)
What were you trying to do, get ahold of the CEO? The last time I had a Seagate drive fail, 10 minutes in the automated RMA system had a replacement on the way. Just enter the SN, they tell you if it's still in warranty, and give you the RMA #. Not exactly what I'd call a night mare. Plus you can do it all online. [assuming you have another system to use, which isn't terribly far fetched for the slashdot crowd I think]
On another note, it seems to me that ALL the HD manufacturers have had their ups and downs over the years.
Seagate was awesome in the 80's. I had a couple 40Meg MFM HD's that I used up to my first Pentium system. Those things were tanks, and weighed the same as one too. Then for awhile, seagate sucked. Especially when they bought Conner. The remarked conner drives sucked [ok Conner always sucked, I'll give you that one;) ].
IBM. was terrible in the mid 80's. If I remember correctly, they got a lot of their HD technology from Digital. Those Digital/early IBM HD's sounded like a damned coffee grinder. Ugh! Now, with the exception of this obviously bad batch of HD's, IBM is the company that everyone is trying to keep up with.
Western Digital. I dunno, I've never had a problem with them, but I remember when everyone hated WD.
Maxtor. One of my jobs used Maxtors exclusivly. They ran great [this was in late 90's]. Then they had a batch that had a massive failure rate. We easily had 50% of the drives from that batch fail.
Anyway, the point is that all the HD maufacturers have bad days. Now I won't go out and buy a 75GXP because of the current problems, but I will have no problem buying the next IBM model to come down the line.
IBM has a huge reputation to uphold and they KNOW it. They will do everything in their power to not lose that reputation, so as I see it, the engineers are probably working overtime, and the next model will be rock solid.
It's also worth noting that this is only a temporary solution. I believe AMD is working on a completely new rating system to be adopted in 2002. It should completely abandon MHz measurements and evaluate performance more effectively. Whether or not the industry will cooperate is yet to be seen.
I hope you are right. One of the problems that I see with the XP model number scheme is that it tries to show the performance in relation to an Intel CPU. This strikes me as a backward step for AMD. I don't think it's a good move [long term] to base your marketing/model numbers on a competitors performance.
Maybe a model numbering scheme based on a standardized suite of benchmarks would be more accurate, as well as something that Intel could possibly decide to use as well, since it would give more of an absolute performance rating instead of a somewhat useless Mhz rating or a rating that's dependant on a competitors performance.
It could even be set up so that the model numbers give an idea of the kind of work the CPU is geared toward [ie, G4 for 3d/video, Athlon for gaming, Sparc Ultra3 for IO/serverm, Intel for...well whatever the heck Intel is good for]
Then again, maybe people would just be too confused by all this and go back to using 486's...
Where are you hosting and do they have reasonable rates?
The box is hosted where I work [XO Communications] and unfortunately it's not really priced for the 'geek and his server' type crowd.:( Lets just say I'm glad *I'm* not having to pay for the space or the bandwidth I'm using.
Part of the reason it's probably so fast is that this is a fairly new datacenter and we don't have that many customers, so I have most of the dual OC-12's to myself. So it'll happily saturate the 100mbit NIC I've got no problem.
Very good point. I think this also falls in with the lack of good installers for Linux apps. The installer needs to just run, install the software, add an icon and be done. When this can be done in Linux, it will be 90% of the way to being a viable desktop replacement for Windows.
Other than that, it's not the 'usability' of the window manager that is stopping Linux from being a good Desktop OS. There is another ability that Linux lacks that will keep it from ever being a viable desktop.
Take for instance my laptop. It has a built in pointer device that is recognized as a PS/2 device. If I install Linux [in this case Mandrake 8, though I use Slackware for servers], it recognizes this pointing device and configures X to use it.
Now say I decide I'm sick of using the keyboard 'clit' and want to use my USB mouse. In Windows 9x/ME/NT/2K, I just plug in the mouse, and it is instantly usable. But not so in Linux. I have to edit the XF86Config and restart the X server in order to use my USB mouse. This is NOT something that a non-techie 'mom' is going to be able or willing to do, and until Linux[X] can see the switch automatically, it's not going to make much headway against Windows.
There's also the "mostly non-existant, but occassionally working but quite convoluted support for wheel mice" issue. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Usually not with my MS Optical Intellimouse. These things need to be seen and configured automatically and work with ALL the apps in X. Not to mention support for *ALL* the buttons on the mouse. Even when I get the wheel support working, I get three buttons plus the wheel. The 2 buttons on the side are then useless.
It's little things like this that Windows does well and automatically that keep Linux from getting any serious desktop usage from the average Joe. The main funcionality of the various window managers is NOT the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
nd as far as running the cat5 parallel to the phone, if your building the house why not set your cables into conduits, that way you can upgrade to whatever cabling you need in ten years.
Leaving a fairly easy upgrade path is almost always good advice.
Plus, hopefully in a few years everything will be wireless, and the cabling will be superfluous.
Ender
don't tell me you think I'm going to get a 22 ping from a 3G wireless device in Boston to a server sitting 1 hop off a T-3 in Syracuse...
:)
No, but wouldn't that be sweeet!
So are there any of our Japanese brethren out there that might already have 3G service? Maybe they can tell us about latency.
Ender
Um, no, I think you're math/logic is a bit off.
the 56K *IS* kilo-BITS-per sec. Which is only 7KBytes/sec
470kbps is a third of a T1 [1.44mbit] Or slightly faster than a standard ADSL line [most seem to be 384kbps]
Ender
This is a step away from the "unix-way" with small exchangeable intercooperable aplications
Unfortunately, it seems to me that while this is the case with command line utilities, devolopers completely forgot this with gui software under X.
Now,I'm honestly not a huge fan of gnome [some of the software involved is cool]. But none of what I have tried seems to be able to simply drag and drop.
I want to be able to drag files from Nautilus into XMMS play lists. And drag and drop an executible into the menu to make a link, etc.
Until that happens, and until software is as easy as inserting a cd, Linux won't come close to Windows, either in a corporate environment or at home.
With that said however, I will admit that many pieces of software are getting much more mature and stable. All we need now are easier installation and better interoperability.
Ender - a WindowMaker user
Where?!?
:)
No tech support job I've ever had exceeded $9/hr, period.
It's not that uncommon. My first, starting tech support job, about 6 years ago, started at $12/hr.Within 2 years I was making $19/hr [$38k/yr] [still just doing mainly support]
Of course I've come a long way since then as a Unix SysAdmin...
One must also consider that in Silicon Valley, that $19/hr wasn't enough to really live on. At least not for a geek that wanted TOYS
* 2001-10-22 19:02:02 Transgaming Interview (articles,games) (rejected)
Seagate was a nightmare to deal with.
;) ].
:)
What were you trying to do, get ahold of the CEO? The last time I had a Seagate drive fail, 10 minutes in the automated RMA system had a replacement on the way. Just enter the SN, they tell you if it's still in warranty, and give you the RMA #. Not exactly what I'd call a night mare. Plus you can do it all online. [assuming you have another system to use, which isn't terribly far fetched for the slashdot crowd I think]
On another note, it seems to me that ALL the HD manufacturers have had their ups and downs over the years.
Seagate was awesome in the 80's. I had a couple 40Meg MFM HD's that I used up to my first Pentium system. Those things were tanks, and weighed the same as one too. Then for awhile, seagate sucked. Especially when they bought Conner. The remarked conner drives sucked [ok Conner always sucked, I'll give you that one
IBM. was terrible in the mid 80's. If I remember correctly, they got a lot of their HD technology from Digital. Those Digital/early IBM HD's sounded like a damned coffee grinder. Ugh! Now, with the exception of this obviously bad batch of HD's, IBM is the company that everyone is trying to keep up with.
Western Digital. I dunno, I've never had a problem with them, but I remember when everyone hated WD.
Maxtor. One of my jobs used Maxtors exclusivly. They ran great [this was in late 90's]. Then they had a batch that had a massive failure rate. We easily had 50% of the drives from that batch fail.
Anyway, the point is that all the HD maufacturers have bad days. Now I won't go out and buy a 75GXP because of the current problems, but I will have no problem buying the next IBM model to come down the line.
IBM has a huge reputation to uphold and they KNOW it. They will do everything in their power to not lose that reputation, so as I see it, the engineers are probably working overtime, and the next model will be rock solid.
Then again, I could be wrong
Ender
It's also worth noting that this is only a temporary solution. I believe AMD is working on a completely new rating system to be adopted in 2002. It should completely abandon MHz measurements and evaluate performance more effectively. Whether or not the industry will cooperate is yet to be seen.
I hope you are right. One of the problems that I see with the XP model number scheme is that it tries to show the performance in relation to an Intel CPU. This strikes me as a backward step for AMD. I don't think it's a good move [long term] to base your marketing/model numbers on a competitors performance.
Maybe a model numbering scheme based on a standardized suite of benchmarks would be more accurate, as well as something that Intel could possibly decide to use as well, since it would give more of an absolute performance rating instead of a somewhat useless Mhz rating or a rating that's dependant on a competitors performance.
It could even be set up so that the model numbers give an idea of the kind of work the CPU is geared toward [ie, G4 for 3d/video, Athlon for gaming, Sparc Ultra3 for IO/serverm, Intel for...well whatever the heck Intel is good for]
Then again, maybe people would just be too confused by all this and go back to using 486's...
Enola Gay
Others have mentioned named aircraft in a rather anonymous way, but there is one whose name is well-remembered.
As is "Glamorous Glennis..." although perhaps not quite as recognized by the average joe.
Ender
Sorry, but this mirror is now down...
Sorry, but this mirror is now down...
Sorry, but this mirror is now down...
Sorry, but this mirror is now down...
Sorry Boys and girls, but this mirror is now down...
Where are you hosting and do they have reasonable rates?
:( Lets just say I'm glad *I'm* not having to pay for the space or the bandwidth I'm using.
The box is hosted where I work [XO Communications] and unfortunately it's not really priced for the 'geek and his server' type crowd.
Part of the reason it's probably so fast is that this is a fairly new datacenter and we don't have that many customers, so I have most of the dual OC-12's to myself. So it'll happily saturate the 100mbit NIC I've got no problem.
Ender
But your suggestion is duly noted. I'll mention it to my boss and see what he says.
ender
http://www.spack.nu/wolf/WolfMPTEST0915.exe
I wish my server the best...
yeah I know it's redundant...
ender
http://www.spack.nu/wolf/WolfMPTEST0915.exe
I wish my server the best...
ender
ender
www.spack.nu/wtc
That will teach me not to skip preview.
Some video that wasn't on the news [at least when I got it] and some pics that look to be from someone's digital camera nearby.
and I'm still trying to collect more videos and pics...
http://www.spack.nu/wtc
here is a mirror with pics that seem to have been taken from a digital camera.
As well as video of a plane hitting a tower and one of the towers collapsing.
I wish my server luck...
ender-
here is a mirror with pics that seem to have been taken from a digital camera.
As well as video of a plane hitting a tower and one of the towers collapsing.
I wish my server luck...
ender-
No, it'll be Cyrix 'Bob'.... but as a slight to MS, it'll be 'bob' spelled backwards.
Ender
Other than that, it's not the 'usability' of the window manager that is stopping Linux from being a good Desktop OS. There is another ability that Linux lacks that will keep it from ever being a viable desktop.
Take for instance my laptop. It has a built in pointer device that is recognized as a PS/2 device. If I install Linux [in this case Mandrake 8, though I use Slackware for servers], it recognizes this pointing device and configures X to use it.
Now say I decide I'm sick of using the keyboard 'clit' and want to use my USB mouse. In Windows 9x/ME/NT/2K, I just plug in the mouse, and it is instantly usable. But not so in Linux. I have to edit the XF86Config and restart the X server in order to use my USB mouse. This is NOT something that a non-techie 'mom' is going to be able or willing to do, and until Linux[X] can see the switch automatically, it's not going to make much headway against Windows.
There's also the "mostly non-existant, but occassionally working but quite convoluted support for wheel mice" issue. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Usually not with my MS Optical Intellimouse. These things need to be seen and configured automatically and work with ALL the apps in X. Not to mention support for *ALL* the buttons on the mouse. Even when I get the wheel support working, I get three buttons plus the wheel. The 2 buttons on the side are then useless.
It's little things like this that Windows does well and automatically that keep Linux from getting any serious desktop usage from the average Joe. The main funcionality of the various window managers is NOT the problem.
Ender